Abstract
Welsh gothic writer Arthur Machen (1863-1947), born Arthur Llewellyn Jones, is undoubtedly best known for his 1894 novella The Great God Pan, a text that has received a fair amount of scholarly consideration. Conversely, many of Machen’s other fin de siècle era works have received little attention from scholars despite the fact that they often engage with similar themes as the Pan novella. “The White People,” written in the 1890s and published in 1906, makes a striking companion piece alongside The Great God Pan: while both tales involve women who interact with supernatural forces, they are told from radically different points of view and betray Machen’s interest in engaging with a wide variety of moral and spiritual perspectives. More curiously though, both of these stories end with the destruction of their female occultists; in fact, many of Machen’s tales feature women who are made “unfit” to exist in the material world through their occult dabblings. The author himself spent much of the 1890s exploring the occult, and it has been said of Machen that he was “a longtime” seeker for a spirituality that satisfied his own burning certainties about the presence of wonder all around us” (Freeman 248). How do we understand Machen’s literary treatment of female occultists in light of his own explorations? Engaging with a variety of frameworks, including Machen’s biography and non-fiction writing on occult topics, this thesis unpacks the narrative structures of these tales while also revealing a tapestry of influences that likely impacted Machen’s writing. This thesis looks to the conventions of Celtic folklore and gothic literature while also detailing contemporary interest in Roman antiquity and gender theory in the Victorian period. The inclusion of a wide variety of contexts helps provide a nuanced reading of the many tensions inherent in Machen’s work.